Tanker War

Bab al-Mandeb tanker transits fell 39%, and Saudi-linked transits 46%, to roughly 7.5 a day by 30 July, according to a single Windward assessment republished by Hellenic Shipping News; no insurer or Lloyd's primary source has confirmed the figure directly . The sequence tracks the Hormuz template exactly: a radio-only warning, a strike, then a war-risk withdrawal, now repeating on a second waterway.

Hormuz crossings had already fallen two-thirds to 53 vessels a week before this second closure began, so the Tanker War label spread to a fresh front while its first front was still worsening rather than easing .

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps declared the Strait of Hormuz closed to all shipping on 11 June, overriding the Ceasefire its own government was negotiating at the time . Mines and suspended war-risk cover kept the strait commercially closed for weeks afterwards regardless of any diplomatic announcement, the defining pattern this Tanker War has repeated all year: political ceasefires on paper, an unresolved naval campaign at sea.

By 20 July weekly Hormuz crossings had fallen two-thirds to 53 vessels, down from 157 the week before; two days later Houthi missiles opened the Bab al-Mandeb front, confirming that a single strait closure no longer defines the label, which now runs on two waterways at once .